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Wednesday, 23 September 2015

You might think the internet consists mainly of cat videos (see our
earlier post on Lolcats), but I would like to
draw your attention to another online genre which has received much less
attention – the video blog (vlog).

Vlogs typically feature a single speaker talking to a camera and can be
found on online platforms such as YouTube. Yet, while the speaker addresses a
non-present audience, he or she uses many of the features one employs in
face-to-face conversation, but with a twist. How exactly do these features
differ? And what strategies do vloggers use to involve their audience?

In face-to-face conversation, people can indicate participant roles (for
example, addressee or eavesdropper) through the content of their speech, such
as using terms of address (Jack, or Jane), personal pronouns (you) and questions. In vlogs, the
addressees are not present and the speaker may not even know who they are. Maximiliane
Frobenius’ analysis of 30 YouTube videos posted online found that vloggers negotiate
this uncertainty by using strategies such as if-clauses (e.g. if you’re
interested), medium-specific terms (e.g. vlog fans, youtubers), and the default –general terms of address such
as you or you guys).

Such strategies motivate the audience to respond to the vlog and leave
comments, which may refer back to the content of the vlog. In one example a vlogger
playfully referred to users of digital media that traditionally use keyboards
as keyboard cowboys. This metaphorical term motivated the audience to respond:
one viewer took up and extended the metaphor to comment in writing that other
users “maybe just didn’t like straddling their keyboards”.

In real life, a
conversation usually has a history which includes previous conversations
between the participants, which may be mentioned or referenced. This is also
the case with vlogs (e.g. “If you’ve seen my latest vid…”), but there are
several differences. In vlogs speakers talk directly into a camera, and have absolute
control over topic and wording. Also, the vlog may remain online until the
vlogger removes it.

Another difference is that in everyday conversation
people must be physically near each other. In vlogs, on the other hand, the
physical space that the speaker/hearer are situated in, is not the space where
communication takes place. This property can be taken up creatively by the
vlogger, like in the following example in line 5:

1 and it’s four hours and ten
minutes in running time.

2 if you want to win a copy of this,

3 all we ask is you tell us your
favourite uh,

4 Doctor Who:.. uh dalek uh episode,

5 uhm .t and if you just put it in
the comments which is just below down here, {points down}

6 uh and uh the winner will be drawn
in seven days from now.

The vlogger, asking the viewers about
their favourite Dr Who episode, uses a medium-specific gesture. He points at a
comments section, which does not really exist in his physical
surroundings. By this creative use of gesture, he demonstrates his ability to imagine the viewer’s perspective.

Unlike face-to-face conversation, gaze
shift in vlogs can’t be used to signal to listeners that they are being
directly addressed, or to show speakers whether the listeners are following
what they are saying, as vloggers usually look into a camera but have no access
to their viewers’ gaze. However, gaze can play a role when others enter a
vlogger’s surroundings, who may not be seen by the audience. By shifting the
gaze away from the viewers and then back, especially when accompanied by
comments, the vlogger can signal to the audience that they are the ones being
addressed. Obviously in face-to-face interactions this sort of commentary would
be unnecessary as participants would be able to easily identify the reason for
the loss of attention, such as a flatmate… or a cat!

Monday, 5 January 2015

I bet you`ve heard about tag
questions (TQs) before, haven`t you? But, apart from knowing what kind of
question they are, have you actually thought about what these TQs actually do?
You might think that the primary goal of the person who utters a question is to
ask for some knowledge that they previously didn’t have – and you would be
quite right. However, is there something more to TQs than just questions?

Overall, the researchers came up
with five functions that a TQ can perform. Apart from being a question i.e. a
linguistic strategy for seeking information, TQs can function as:

·a statement

·a statement-question blend

·a response

·a command or an offer (e.g. a TQ can
negotiate a desired action)

The criteria used in the categorization
procedures were the intonation on the tag (whether the last part of the TQ is
pronounced with rising or falling intonation), the polarity of the tag (for
example, in he`s fine, is he? there
is constant
polarity, as opposed to in he`s fine, isn`t he? where there is regular
polarity, meaning that the tag is negative but the preceding clause is
not). The authors also considered whether the TQ was the last item preceding a
response (so-called turn-final TQ) or whether the same speaker continued his or her
turn in the discussion after asking a TQ (so-called turn-medialTQ).

Surprisingly enough, only 20% of all
occurrences were categorized as questions. The examples include (the TQs are
underlined):

B: he says the contraction makes it quite normal, but the other doesn’t
A:you’re sure of that, are you?

Here you see all the typical
‘textbook’ features of questions: rising intonation, expectation of a response,
lack of knowledge on the part of A. Interestingly, constant polarity is more
frequent in questions than in any other function types of TQ.

What about the other function types?
21% of the data consisted of TQs that were statements not usually expecting
a response. As a rule, these are turn-medial and uttered with falling
intonation on the tag. For example:

A: er heˈs not gonna give it to you twice, though, is he? cos, I donˈt
reckon he wouldgive it to you twice
B: he
donˈt, he donˈt give it to you twice

The most
common function (44%) of the TQs was a statement-question blend; that is, the
TQ states a specific proposition, but the speaker expects a response. 88% of this
type of TQ did get a response, usually confirming the proposition. The speakers
usually positioned themselves as more knowledgeable, hence the statement part.
A typical example of a statement-question blend is:

B: and he makes this hideous giggle, doesn’t he? A: yes,
he does

Finally, a
tiny (3%), but peculiar part of the data contains TQs initiating an exchange
where the speaker is demanding or offering a desired action, as in this example:

you know, Pat, don’t say that, will you?

These are
usually pronounced with rising intonation on the tag, which indicates
uncertainty and thus softens the request that the addressee complies with the
command.

So although
these forms are known as tag questions, ‘question’ doesn’t seem the right
word to use, does it?

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